Re'eh

“See this day I set before you blessing and curse,” warns god.  Both depend upon the way that we behave, how we follow God’s laws.  Our ancestors stood on mountains opposite one another and swore to obey God mitzvot (commandments).

After a long series of blessings and curses God begs us to “choose life.” 

Choose life?  Of course we would make that choice.  But the meaning is far deeper.  What God means when he tells us to choose life is that we choose to do the things that infuse ourselves and others with a sense of purpose, in consonance with God.  “Life” is more than breathing and eating.  It means for the Jew that we make the world more whole, remove some of the suffering, follow the footsteps of our ancestors. 


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“If there is among you a poor man of one of your brothers inside any of your gates in your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother.” (Deuteronomy 15:7)

 

Exodus speaks of freeing a Hebrew servant after six years. This week’s portion goes even further in its treatment of such a Hebrew servant. When setting him free one must give him what he needs financially to establish himself. The Bible wants to avoid what happened in the old American south, where freed slaves became sharecroppers and lived in abject poverty. This poverty continues to our days.

This Torah reading is also concerned with releasing debts. Every seven years debts were cancelled. Of course, this created other problems such as the refusal of people to loan money. The great sage Hillel would later develop the prosbul, a legal invention that would allow debts to be transferred to the courts. Through Hillel’s innovation people would continue to loan to the poor. This week’s portion also forbids the charging of interest for such loans. This became the basis of Hebrew Free Loan societies which became a fundamental institution throughout the established Jewish world.

 

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